Drama
Play
Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof
Author
First Performed
Original Language
Tennessee Williams
1955
English
THEMES
“Lying! Dying!
Liars!”
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof takes place on a single evening during a birthday
party for Big Daddy, the patriarch of a Southern plantation. Crisis strikes,
and the family must deal with long-standing artifice, lies, jealousy, greed,
cruelty, and homophobia. What culminates is an explosive night that burns
through the family’s web of deceit.
Delusion & Artifice
Homophobia
Cruelty
Whether it’s lying to themselves or
Brick’s rejection of his homosexuality
Brick and Big Daddy are fiercely
others, nobody can face the truth.
and others’ responses to it triggers
cruel to their wives, despite their
his alcoholism and disgust
wives’ love for them.
with Maggie.
Main Characters
Family
Married
Brick
Big Daddy
Gooper
Younger, favored son
Family patriarch; owner of
Brick’s successful but
of Big Daddy
a large cotton plantation
unloved older brother
Maggie
Big Mama
Mae
Nervous, envious,
Big Daddy’s flashy, despised
Gooper’s sharp,
lonely wife
wife; sweet but tense
scheming wife
Author
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
by the Numbers
1958
1955
Year all public performances
Year the play won the
of the play were banned in
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
London for its references to
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
homosexuality
1911–83
Born in Mississippi as Thomas
Lanier Williams, Tennessee
Williams is known for his plays
6
that feature intense
25
characters and heavy
themes about human
Academy Awards for which
Full-length plays Williams
the 1958 film adaptation,
wrote
frustration. In Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof, one of his best-known
plays, family interactions
starring Elizabeth Taylor and
create serious drama through
Paul Newman, was nominated
vivid language.
Symbols
Cat
Crutch
Children
Symbolizes Maggie’s craftiness
Represents Brick’s use of
Represent trickery and deviousness
and determination
self-deceit and alcohol
as part of Mae’s plans to win
to cope with life
Big Daddy's inheritance
ho can face truth? Can you?
Brick, Act 2
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Famous Authors, IMDb, LA Weekly,
Official London Theatre, The Pulitzer Prizes, The Tennessee Williams
Annual Review for Homosexuality
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